75 

 HEAT. 



With this subject will be introduced a series of lessons on 

 some of the most common phenomena of air, water and soils. It 

 seems more generally thought that plants and animals furnish the 

 best material for nature study lessons. On this account it is not 

 out of place to point out here that certain excellent advantages 

 possessed by non-living phenomena have been overlooked, and 

 consequently some of the best material for this work has been 

 widely neglected. 



In the first place it is usually supposed that children have a 

 more vivid interest in plants and animals than in things without 

 lite. This is apparently true, but their interest has arisen from 

 the conspicuousness of the plants and animals, especially the lat- 

 ter. They are constantly disporting themselves before them. 

 Then their kinship in the possessing of life, and their sympathy 

 in the organisms exhibiting that life is keen and peculiar, and 

 cannot be replaced by any other forms of interest. Still this in- 

 terest may be strong, and may even be strengthened with but 

 little advance in the study of nature. The animal and plant con- 

 stitute little as educational material if they simply appeal to the 

 emotions. We must make use of those phenomena for this work 

 which allow the seeing of facts and the drawing of conclusions from 

 them; for example, the adaptations of the plant or animal to its 

 surroundings, or the contrivances it has for doing those things 

 which make up its daily life. In other words, we are to seek ex- 

 planations of the organism. Since the life of the animal or plant 

 is very complex, it naturally follows that the number of phenom- 

 ena in the life of any plant or animal which can be fairly isolated, 

 and whose explanation is fairly within the powers of the child are 

 comparatively few. We ar^.- then led into temptation in two di- 

 rections: either we pass over into the region which requires more 

 power of analysis and oi generalization than the child possesses, 



